President Obama Makes A New Speech on Immigration Reform

On Thursday, President Obama took up the immigration reform calling for Republican to support his plan. The plan is scarce on specifics. The President been under fire to since running for President in 2008. At American University to a largely receptive audience, Obama said, “I’m ready to move forward, the majority of Democrats are ready to move forward and I believe the majority of Americans are ready to move forward,” he said.

“Reform that brings accountability to our immigration system cannot pass without Republican votes. That is the political and mathematical reality.” Obama did not set a time frame to get the legislation passed.

“I’m ready to move forward, the majority of Democrats are ready to move forward and I believe the majority of Americans are ready to move forward,” he said. “Reform that brings accountability to our immigration system cannot pass without Republican votes. That is the political and mathematical reality.”

The President slammed S.B.1070 the Arizona Immigration law. He did not mention that the Department of Justice will file a lawsuit against Arizona bill. The Bill takes in effect July 29th.

President Obama priorities included health care reform, financial industry reform, along with cap-and-trade legislation; immigration reform took a back seat.

“In an environment where the Democrats feel vulnerable and where the economy is so bad, trying to say we need to give eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants is a very tough sell politically, and for the public,” said Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Senator Orin Hatch(R-UT) accuse the President “little more than cynical political pandering to his left wing political base and is more about giving backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants than real reform.”

President Obama says closing the border won’t work. “There are those who argue that we should not move forward with any other elements of reform until we have fully sealed our borders,” he said. “Our borders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the problem only with fences and border patrols. It won’t work.”

Republicans say that’s not true. “If he would take amnesty off the table and make a real commitment to border and interior security, he will find strong bipartisan support,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. “But attacks on states filling the breach created by the failure of the federal government won’t secure the border, grow jobs or create solutions for what we all agree is a broken immigration system,” he said.